So, yesterday, your intrepid Damned Connecticut team braved the fearsome snow storm to visit a number of interesting sites around New Haven. Over the next week or so, look for new entries about the Voynich Manuscript, Skull & Bones, Grove Street Cemetery, Woolsey Hall and Downes Road in Hamden, as well as updates on current entries, such as Midnight Mary.
[Quick sidenote/promo: You can also expect our first-ever “Damned Interview,” a chat we had with author, historian and member of the New England Paranormal Video Research Group, Don Carter (as soon as I’m done transcribing it).]
Anyway, as it seems like every time we go out, the weather was a factor — one time rain, one time heavy fog, this time snow. This lead to our first damned casualty as Steve wiped out spectacularly on the New Haven Green. “OMG! OMG! Man down!” Fortunately, the biggest injury was to his pride (which Kate kept poking like a bruise). Oh, and he whimpered something about his hamstring …
For the record, I took a fall, too. Somehow though, I was able to man up and keep going. Just sayin’.
Of course no Damned Connecticut field trip is complete without a lot of laughs and an unusual moment or two. As when we discovered the random corn at Union Cemetery, we came across sort of an odd sight while wandering around snowy Grove Street Cemetery. Under a marble bench was a pair of shoes — men’s penny loafers, it appears — just sitting there as if someone had neatly taken them off before walking off on a barefooted jaunt.
Now, I’ve heard of leaving rocks on top of gravestones (even saw some nearby), as well as flowers, letters, pictures and other mementos. But shoes? As we read the inscription on the bench and the marker, it created a touching picture in my mind.
According to the marker, the site was for Pauline Moore Scipia [Oct. 22, 1926 – Jan. 26, 1996] and Howard Curtis Scipia [Dec. 21, 1921 – April 30, 2001]. On the bench was a simple — and moving — inscription.
“In a field of memories
We meet everyday”
I couldn’t find anything about the Scipias, and have nothing to indicate they were anything other than another couple who have gone through this world together. I have nothing to base this on but pure conjecture, but it also doesn’t take much to imagine after his wife’s death, Howard coming out regularly to visit. While he was there, he would think of their life together . . . the happiness . . . the love . . . the good times and bad . . . how they would take Sunday walks, hand-in-hand . . . through fields of gold . . . and by leaving his shoes there, they were his quiet way of telling her “I’m not taking walks with anyone else until we meet again, my love.”
Okay, maybe there’s a more mundane explanation, but I going with mine.
1 comment
Hey! I just learned last night that a shoe on the roof of a house means drugs are sold there. Maybe theres a connection but probably not….
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